27. 27 - Ryder
M aybe I’m not dead, but I’m going to hell.
Because fuck , if Enzo wasn’t right. Zella tastes like heaven, and his face is smug as he follows me into the bathroom.
I rinse out the washcloth, setting it to the side, and he props his hip against the sink like we’re about to have some juicy gossip session and finish it off with BFF friendship bracelets.
“Don’t,” I mutter before he can say anything. I’m not in the mood.
He clicks his tongue. “She was in pain. We helped. Don’t get your little martyred ass in a twist over it.”
Pressing my lips together, I scrub at my hands. Enzo mercifully shuts the fuck up, but it only lasts for a minute before he starts again. I swear to God, he’s spoken more in the last week than he has in the past fucking decade.
She’s changing all of us.
“Why are you fighting this so hard?” he murmurs. When I flick my eyes to him, he’s staring at me in the mirror. “We’ve never been ones to take the moral high ground.”
Shrugging, I reach for the small towel to dry myself off. “Never a bad time to start.”
“Bullshit.” When I try to leave, he gets in front of me, shoving me back. “You feel clean yet?”
My head jerks back like he’s slapped me. “What?”
He nods at my hands. When I glance down, they’re bright red. “You use any more hot water, you’re gonna take your skin off. It’s giving me ideas, but probably not healthy.”
I didn’t even notice the temperature of the water. I’m so used to washing with it as hot as possible. “Drop it.”
“No.” He pushes me back again. “This will work. But it needs all of us.”
I swallow. “No, it doesn’t. Four’s a crowd, Enzo. Normal relationships—,”
He barks a sarcastic laugh. “You serious? None of us are fucking normal , Ry. You. Me. Maverick. And not her, either. Conventional isn’t in our fucking vocabulary. And she needs you.”
“Sure she does,” I say drily. “I bring so much to the table.”
He leans in close. “You want a fucking comparison? I’m a psychopath , Ry. I’ve made my peace with it. Ain’t never gonna change. I can’t do any of that mushy shit. Wouldn’t even know where to start.”
He jerks a thumb over his shoulder, and I shrug. “Maverick—,”
“—can’t do it either. He’s focused on keeping her safe and making sure she’s fed, but he doesn’t have what you have. Neither of us do. We need you . So get on the fucking boat, Ryder. And if you’re that torn up over the fucking day job, pack it in and become a damn nun.”
With a final push, he turns and leaves, and I stare at his retreating back.
That was the worst pep talk I’ve ever heard.
Hesitantly, I make my way back into the bedroom. Zella is curled up in the corner chair fiddling with her hair, watching Maverick remake the bed with wide eyes. “You really don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, we do.” He says the words softly, his eyes locking with mine as he straightens.
Avoiding his gaze, I try to smile at Zella. “How are you feeling?”
“Better. I think the little buttons helped?”
“Those are pills. Painkillers.” Taking up the spot next to her, we watch Maverick fuss over the bedding like an old woman in silence.
Finally, he turns. “Arms up.”
Zella raises her arms obediently and he lifts her from the bed, carrying her across the room and tucking her back in. She looks smaller as she curls back up, even her hair tucked away under the covers. Maverick leans over, testing the temperature of her forehead. “One of us will stay with you.”
“This is silly.” Her muffled voice protests before her head pops out of the covers, looking adorably mussed. “I’m used to doing this on my own. And if it’s so normal, why is everyone fussing?”
I stay back as Maverick sits beside her. “It might be normal,” he says gently. “But this – this is new to all of us, Zella. We’re all learning as we go. And none of us like the idea of you being in pain.”
“I don’t mind,” Enzo drawls, “but I’d rather be the one in charge of it.”
Maverick pins him with a disapproving stare, before stroking his fingers across Zella’s cheek. “Enzo and I have work to do. We’ll come and check on you later.”
Well… I guess I’m first up.
After they’ve left, we linger in awkward silence. I stay against the wall, and Zella disappears back under the covers. I hear her grumbling, and the covers jiggle as she moves herself around until her head pops back up with a frustrated huff.
“I feel fine now,” she says grumpily. “I can get up.”
I waggle my finger at her. “Nuh-uh. Maverick gives the orders around here, princess. I think he might blow a gasket if you jump up straight away. Maybe in an hour or so.”
She flops back against the pillows with a huff. “Will you at least come over here? Or are you so determined to avoid me?”
My brows fly up. “I… ah. I’m not avoiding you.”
Vivid green eyes pin me with an accusing stare. “I might be… na?ve, but I’m not an imbecile, Ryder. You’re avoiding me because of last night, and then what just happened.”
I swallow down the urge to pinch my nose. I really am turning into Daddy Mav. “You’re very direct, you know.”
She shrugs. “Will you come over here? Please?”
My feet are moving before my brain can give the direction, and I hover over her. “What’s wrong?”
She frowns at me. “Nothing. Will you lay down? You’re making my neck crick.”
When I hesitate, she crosses her arms. “You did it before, after the forest. Why is now any different?”
Because it feels like more now.
But I lay down beside her anyway, on top of the covers with my hands folded over my stomach. Zella wriggles until both of us are staring at the ceiling, the sound of soft breathing filling the space between us.
Her hand creeps across the covers. When I flip my hand over, her fingers entwine with mine, and she sighs.
“I’ll never get used to that. You’re so warm.”
I turn my head on the pillow, watching the way her brows draw together as she watches the empty ceiling above us. Her face looks… shadowed. Like she’s not in the room. “What do you mean?”
“When you have a lifetime without touch… you learn to live without it. But I never knew what I was missing.”
Her fingers squeeze mine. “I don’t know how I lived without it,” she whispers. “I don’t know how I existed in that apartment, Ryder. I think I’d lose my mind if I went back.”
She huffs a short laugh, but it’s tinged with pain. “Not that I can. But I couldn’t live like that again. Not now that I know.”
I absorb her words quietly. “He never touched you? Ever?”
She shakes her head. “I asked him once… before I met you. He told me I had a nursemaid when I was a baby, but I don’t remember her. And then when I was old enough… never. Not as far as I remember.”
It’s a blessing, considering the sick shit I watched at Club X. I contemplate telling her, for a moment. But she doesn’t need those nightmares in her head.
“He never tucked me in,” she whispers. “He never changed my bed when I was sick or brought me the painkiller buttons. I think he might have once, when I had a bad fever. But he didn’t like doing it. He said it wasn’t a good thing to have inside my body.”
I stiffen. “So what did you do? When you were sick? Or when you had your period?”
“I managed. Not always well, though. I had to bag everything up, and Ethan would burn it and bring me fresh things. He’s obsessed with things being clean, fresh, bright. He wouldn’t even talk about it, just collected the bags and brought new ones.”
For twenty years, she lived alone. Images of a younger Zella, sick or worried and trying to make the best of a shitty situation fill my mind. I squeeze her hand back, clearing my throat.
It feels only fair to offer up a little part of me, in exchange for a little part of her.
“My mother was a junkie,” I murmur.
She turns her head to mine with a frown. “What’s that?”
“An addict,” I try to clarify. “She was addicted to drugs. They’d make her act strange. Sometimes slow and sleepy, but sometimes she’d be wide awake and full of energy, but not the good kind.”
The kind that would blow all of our rent money on an impromptu shopping spree, or make her decide to decorate our shitty trailer, buying expensive paint and throwing it everywhere. The kind that scratched at her skin until it bled, scabs on top of needle tracks until she was unrecognizable.
“We never had any money,” I say quietly. “And when I got a bit older, I wanted to help. So I lied about my age, got a job working for cash at this little bar in the city.”
Zella smiles a little. “You wanted to help your mom. That’s sweet.”
I swallow. “Yeah. But it wasn’t enough.”
My voice sounds rough, and Zella picks up on it, squeezing my hand. “What happened?”
“I came home one night,” I start slowly. “And her dealer – the person who she bought the drugs from – he was there. She owed him a lot of money, and he was hitting her.”
Her hand tightens in mine.
“He kept hurting her,” I whisper, “and I couldn’t get him off. But then he stopped, and he turned to me. He told me if I went and worked for him, he’d leave her alone. Her debts would be paid off.”
“Ryder,” she whispers. “What did your mom say?”
“She asked me to do it.” My throat feels thick. “She begged me. And she was all bruised, and she was so thin. So I told him that I would, if he stopped her supply. And he agreed.”
Zella inhales sharply. “I’m so sorry. Did he stop?”
“Yeah.” I turn her hand over in mine, drawing patterns in her palm. “But she found someone else pretty quick. Died a few weeks later of an overdose. But he told me I’d signed a deal, and it wasn’t his fault she didn’t know how to stop. Didn’t have much of a choice, then.”
I can feel her looking at me, feel the sorrow in her gaze, the sympathy.
“How long?” she asks softly. “How long did you do that?”
“Years,” I confess, the words feeling like jagged, broken glass in my throat. Years of unfamiliar hands, rough touches, harsh laughter. Being passed from person to person like I was nothing more than a thing.
“Lots of people started doing drugs, to get them through. But I… I never wanted that.”
But it meant I remembered. Every little, horrible part of it.
“How did you get out?”
Blowing out a breath, I pull myself back into the room. “Maverick. He was on a job with his father, and I gave him some information that he needed. We just… clicked. And the next thing I knew, he’d spoken to Antonio and… he bought me out.”
My stomach flips over. Zella gapes.
“He bought you?” she asks in horror. “Like a possession?”
I shake my head. “No. Not like that. He had to pay them to get me out of there. It’s never been like that between us.”
Even if it still feels like an invisible noose around my neck.
“So I came to work for him and his dad,” I say with a smile to cover up the aching in my chest. “Then Enzo joined us a few years later, and here we are, the merry band of reprobates you see today.”
“What about Maverick’s dad?” Zella asks curiously.
“He died.” Sorrow builds in my chest. “Robert was a good man. Better than all of us, really.”
“I don’t believe that,” she says softly. “Thank you for telling me.”
We’re facing each other, and I poke her gently, over her heart. “A piece for a piece.”
Her lashes cast feathery shadows on her cheeks as she tries to smile. “A piece of my heart for a piece of yours?”
“Yep,” I murmur. “Seems fair.”
“Does that mean…,” she stops, and chews on her lip. “Are you choosing?”
“I’m not sure you were ever a choice, little thief,” I say quietly. “I think you were always going to be inevitable.”
I think I knew it the second I locked eyes with her in that apartment and she knocked me out with a damn wok.
“Does it feel like this for everyone?” she asks me, and I give her a questioning look. She presses her fingers against my heart, and then against hers. “So… consuming?”
I shake my head. “No. Not for everyone.”
“Then I feel very lucky,” she murmurs. “That it was you and Enzo that found me.”
Lifting her hand, I twist her wrist lightly, baring the soft skin and pressing my lips against it.
“I think we were the lucky ones, Zella.”
She gives me a soft, sweet smile, and then she rolls over. “Come here,” she says, looking over her shoulder. “Please?”
I shift closer, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her back against me. She shifts, settling into the crook of my arms like she’s always belonged there.
Maybe she has.
“In an hour,” she mumbles after a few minutes. “I’m getting up.”
I smile into her hair. “Sounds like a plan to me. I do have a promise to keep.”
And a whole world to show her.
Maybe I’m not a good man. But maybe I could be a better one.
For her.